Our New Home in Olympia!!

Welcome back everyone. We plan to blog more often about our life in Olympia and all that happens here! We wanted to show you pictures of our new place and the neighborhood. (p.s. We have extra rooms for all of you to stay in, so come visit us in Washington- And bring a rain jacket.)



Our new townhome/duplex! We love it- and our neighbors are great.

We live just up the hill from Capitol Lake. It's about a 10 min walk from our house and it's quite pretty. Just behind is the bottom of the Puget Sound where the ocean meanders it's way toward Olympia. We took these while the sun was out when we had the chance because people said it would be raining for the rest of the winter. So far it's true.

Us at the lake with not a whole lot to do while we waited, and waited, and waited for our belongings to arrive.  

We took this shot with the hope that you could see Mt. Rainier (highest mountain in the lower 48), but it was difficult to capture with a picture due to the clouds. It's there, just hard to see. In the summer, we will have many more Rainier pictures I'm sure. You can see it from anywhere you go around here!

Funny story here- We learned from the landlord how to work the thermostat. It was set at 55 while it was unoccupied and he showed us how to navigate it. Well, we turned it up to 68 and it was great. We both went to sleep comfortable, while keeping asleep was more difficult. We were both really cold all night long and were kind of worried. I didn't want to be sleeping in flannel onesies (sorry Connor). So when I woke up and noticed it was back to 55, I realized my error. The thermostat is set on time periods throughout the day and we didn't realize we had to program them all- So, we fixed that and I avoided the flannel pajamas.

 

Our sweet new living room. Everyone will notice things they've given/gifted to us throughout these pictures, (i.e. TV, Blue-ray, pillows, pictures, paintings, etc...) so thank you for helping us have a comfortable home :) 

We love our new rug!
It's made by hemp-loving hippies who live in the trees out here. Pretty nice work huh (not true, but maybe...)

View from the front door. Living room, dining room, and kitchen all-in-one. We also bought a nice new dining room table complete with 6 chairs for all our visitors. :) We really like the table. We also like Kirt's painting.

Sweet kitchen with a ton of space, at least more than we've ever, ever had. This doesn't include the giant pantry to the left of the fridge! Schaefer cooking one of my favorites for Sunday dinner- Black Bean Lasagna!! So delicious.  

This is our favorite touch we added this week while waiting for our moving truck that came 4 days after the anticipated day (don't worry I'm not upset or anything like that). We enlarged a few of our favorite photos from our road trip that include Yellowstone and Jenny Lake at Jackson Hole. We like to think Ansel Adams has a few new contemporaries looking to surpass his greatness. National Geographic called last week and asked for our portfolio but unfortunately we had to turn them down..... because we had already given it to Outside magazine.

It's like being at the "Schaefer Art Studio"
 

I know it's just a washer and dryer, but we had to add this one for a story. So, in all my apartment renting over the last decade, I've never installed my own washer and dryer. I've done a few fix it/repair stuff with the roomies, but never installed. Dryer is easy- Check. Washer, I figured I just needed to get the hot and cold lines in the right place and viola, we have washer. So, test run begins well with the lines connected, and I stop it after about 30 secs of filling, when all the sudden water is leaking everywhere. I guess I never, ever before considered where the water in the washer goes after it's done washing. In my case, it was coming all over the floor. I soon realized that little spout at the bottom needs a hose connected to it that ends up in another pipe to be drained. Glad to say that it all works great now, with no water on the floor. :)

Stay tuned for more pictures from our road trip that we want to share with everyone, and pictures of the upstairs as well. Mom's quilt looks fabulous!